MLA Citation Guide (MLA 9th Edition): Advertisements

Note: For your Works Cited list, all citations should be double spaced and have a hanging indent.

A "hanging indent" means that each subsequent line after the first line of your citation should be indented by 0.5 inches.

Access Date

In the 9th edition of the MLA Manual, accessed dates are no longer used for most entries.  The exception is if you have a web source without a publication date or which has been altered or removed.  This date will be added to the end of the entry. E.g. Accessed 23 July 2022.

Authors/Editors

An author can be a person but can also be an organization, or company. These are called group or corporate authors.

If you are citing a chapter from a book that has an editor, the author of the chapter is listed first, and is the name listed in the in-text citation.

Dates

The format of all dates is: Date Month (shortened) Year. E.g. 5 Sept. 2012.

Whether to give the year alone or include a month and day depends on your source: write the full date as you find it there.

If no date is listed, omit it unless you can find that information available in a reliable source. In that case the date is cited in square brackets. E.g. [2008]

Page Numbers

Page number on your Works Cited page (but not for in-text citations) are now proceeded by p. for a single page number and pp. for a range of page numbers. E.g. p. 156 or pp. 79-92.

Publishers

You have the option to use the shortened name of the publisher by using UP instead of University Press (e.g. Oxford UP, not Oxford University Press).

You also have the option to remove articles (A, An, The), business abbreviations (e.g. Co., Inc.) and descriptive words (e.g. Books, House, Press, Publishers).

Titles

Capitalize the first letter of every important word in the title. You do not need to capitalize words such as: in, of, or an.

If there is a colon (:) in the title, include what comes after the colon (also known as the subtitle).

Name of Company That Owns the Product advertisement. Name of Magazine, Journal or Newspaper Where Advertisement Was Accessed, Date, p. Page number of advertisement. Name of Database, Url.

  Note: You may want or need to add more identifying information about the advertisement, such as the product name or a description of the specific ad in a series to distinguish it from other ads.

Name of Company That Owns the Product advertisement. Name of Magazine, Journal or Newspaper Where Advertisement Was Accessed, Date, p. Page number of advertisement.

  Note: You may want or need to add more identifying information about the advertisement, such as the product name or a description of the specific ad in a series to distinguish it from other ads.

Name of Company That Owns the Product advertisement. Network, Date and time of airing.

  Note: You may want or need to add more identifying information about the advertisement, such as the product name or a description of the specific ad in a series to distinguish it from other ads.

Name of Company That Owns the Product advertisement. Date of Advertisement. Name of Website Where Ad was Accessed, Date, url. Accessed date of access if not from a website about ads.

  Note: You may want or need to add more identifying information about the advertisement, such as the product name or a description of the specific ad in a series to distinguish it from other ads.

  Note: If your advertisement comes from a website about ads, it might have a title.  If so, use the title it is given and place it in quotation marks.

"Title of Video." YouTube, uploaded by name or username, Date of upload, url. 

  Note: You may want or need to add more identifying information about the advertisement, such as the product name or a description of the specific ad in a series to distinguish it from other ads.

Name of Company That Owns the Product. "Title of Video." YouTube, Date of upload, url. 

  Note: You may want or need to add more identifying information about the advertisement, such as the product name or a description of the specific ad in a series to distinguish it from other ads.